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Tuesday, November 29, 2016
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Website names ‘leftist’ UT professors By Catherine Marfin @catherinemarfin
Four UT professors have been named on Professor Watchlist, a website that lists professors from universities across the country “who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” The website, which first appeared early last week, is a project of Turning Point USA, a nonprofit organization which aims to educate students about the principles of free market and limited government. The
website currently lists 150 professors from 110 universities and includes pre-existing news articles detailing incidents involving each professor. Jennifer Adair, associate professor of curriculum and instruction, history professor Joan Neuberger, religious studies professor John Traphagan and journalism professor Robert Jensen have all been listed on the website for “advancing a racial agenda” and demonstrating “liberal bias in the classroom” at UT. Adair is named on the website for proposing in a 2014
Washington Post editorial that educators teach children racial tolerance at a younger age to prevent racial prejudice. The website says Adair has pushed this opinion with required projects and assignments. “She gives us a different perspective to consider, but doesn’t force us to adopt that perspective,” said finance junior Maria Lopez, who is currently taking a class with Adair. “She teaches about the importance of play in early childhood, which she has
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CDC finds native case of Zika in Brownsville @sarahphilips23
Thomas Negrete | Daily Texan File photo
Journalism professor Robert Jensen speaks about American exceptionalism and other issues on Nov. 10.
Plan II senior joins Rhodes Scholar legacy By Burhanuddin Calcuttawala @thisisfordtex
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STATE
By Sarah Philips
CAMPUS
For the 31st time in the school’s history, UT Austin is sending a Rhodes scholar to the University of Oxford. Plan II senior Mikaila Smith is one of 32 U.S. students awarded the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford by the Rhodes Trust this year. Smith said she intends to pursue two master’s of science degrees, one in refugee and forced migration studies and the other in global governance and diplomacy, though her plans may change as she coordinates with Rhodes and applies to Oxford. Though she does not know exactly what she wants to do after Oxford, Smith said she wants to remain directly involved with the people she works with in the future. “[A] personal goal of mine is to always stay connected
bit.ly/dtvid
Alissa Lazo-Kim | Daily Texan Staff
Plan II Senior Mikaela Smith is thrilled to receive the Rhodes Scholarship and plans on staying connected with those she works with now. Smith is one of the few to be awarded the opportunity to study at Oxford.
CAMPUS
The first local transmission of the Zika virus in Texas occurred in Brownsville, Texas health officials announced Monday. The woman who contracted the illness is not pregnant, according to the Washington Post. The Centers for Disease Control said the transmission was likely to be local since the patient had not traveled to or had contact with someone who traveled to a Zika-infected place. Zika can be spread through mosquito bites or by sexual transmission from a person infected with the disease. This is the second time a local transmission of the disease has occurred in the continental U.S. Following the first case, which was reported in Miami, the CDC issued an advisory warning to pregnant women cautioning them to not travel to the area because the disease can cause birth defects. The CDC has not yet issued such a warning for Texas. According to the CDC, Texas officials will be amping up mosquito testing and informing the public of the need to use mosquito repellant. “Even though it is late in the mosquito season,
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ASTRONOMY
Students pick up holiday gifts at Amazon Researchers: Martian By Sunny Kim @sunny_newsiee
For the first time, students can order and pickup their Black Friday and Cyber Monday purchases at the Amazon pickup location at Gregory Gymnasium. Many students previously had inconvenient experiences picking up their packages before the Amazon pickup location was installed in the summer, according to Jennifer Speer, director of communications, assessment, development and IT for the Division of Recreational Sports. “Many of the students we talked to before this partnership explained that their packages were either left on their doors that anybody could take away, or they had to wait until their apartment office was open in very inconvenient times,” Speer said.
Psychology sophomore Michelle Tran, who lives in Chelsea Condominium at 25th, said she wouldn’t want to order packages directly to her apartment because there is no safe mailbox system. “It’s a really nice place, it’s just the package issue,” Tran said. “It comes on time, but the package just sits outside when I’m not home.” Speer said she believes the partnership between UT and Amazon brings a positive experience to students. “The idea of having the opportunity to take advantage of getting pickups on campus in a safe, convenient location like Gregory Gym that is open long hours has led to a very positive student experience,” Speer said. Nursing freshman Stephanie Chen said she ordered new headphones during Black Friday because she lost her original pair. The
craters could host life By Andrew Kirsop @a_kirsop
Yifan Lyu | Daily Texan Staff
A Texas MBA student picks up his package at the Amazon pickup location in Gregory Gymnasium.
Amazon pickup location is close and convenient for her, Chen said. “I live at Moore Hill, so it’s super close,” Chen said. “Anything I need, I just pickup here because it’s so convenient.” Amazon student members also receive a free
one-day pickup for orders placed by 10 p.m., according to Amazon’s website. Chen said the one-day free shipping is a great deal because it saves her time. “If you need something within a day, you can get it the
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Unique depressions on Mars could be new places to look for signs of life, according to a new study published this month in Icarus, the International Journal of Solar System Studies. The study was led by researchers in the Jackson School of Geosciences. Joseph Levy, a research associate at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and the study’s lead author, found two depressions on the red planet’s surface with potential to host water, nutrients and heat — a likely environment to sustain life. These depressions resemble Earth’s “ice cauldrons,” or formations created by volcanoes erupting under sheets of ice.
“First we set about to see if the materials [on the edges of the depression] were mostly ice, or ice-related,” Levy said in an email. “This involved looking for landscape features that are indicative of glacial processes on Mars.” The team studied two regions of Mars, the Hellas Basin and the Galaxias Fossae region, focusing specifically on how these regions were formed. “In the end, we had to rely on the morphology (landform structure) of the features to arrive at a preferred interpretation,” Levy said in an email. “The lack of ejecta and other crater-related landforms around the North Hellas depression suggests that it was volcanic, rather than
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